The Role of the African Diaspora in Development in Africa: Egypt as an Example

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Faculty of African Postgraduate Studies, Cairo University, Egypt

Abstract

This study aims to monitor the role and importance of the African diaspora in achieving sustainable development in Africa. This is achieved by scrutinizing the idea and emergence of African diaspora; and by looking closely at the experience of Arab Republic of Egypt in gathering the Egyptian immigrants and caring for them to help and encourage them to provide aid to support the Egyptian economy. The study has adopted the theory of belonging and identity and presented some concepts such as (African diaspora, Pan-Africanism, and identity and belonging). This study has reached several results, the most important of which are: Although the idea of ​​diaspora was based on an attempt to gather immigrants in one group in order to provide aid to the African continent, individual aids are still the largest contribution made to Africa. The search for identity and belonging, on the other hand, is one of the most important factors that helped increase the interdependence between African immigrants and their countries of origin. The study has also confirmed that the rate of contribution of the African immigrants in diaspora to projects, and development in Africa increases the rate of international financial aid and assistance in some African countries. However, the contributions of African immigrants in diaspora are not being given support and attention. Arab Republic of Egypt is one of the countries that paid attention to the Egyptian diaspora and was interested in making links on an official level, as the ministry relied in many agreements and cooperation on individual contributions, and so far, the Egyptian diaspora has not been grouped under the umbrella of projects linking immigrants to their homeland.

Keywords

References

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